Home! After 25 days, 11 flights, 9 countries and 3 continents it sure is nice to sleep in our own bed. As one final post on this Facebook page, I wanted to leave you all with a brief summary of each destination that we visited as well as my thoughts on traveling around the world in general. I’ve included a few pictures that we took using our Canon camera that were not part of our original posts. 1. NYC – It goes without saying that New York City is one of the greatest cities (if not the greatest) in the modern world. If you only have a day in the Big Apple before flying on to Europe like we did, take the subway to the new One World Trade Center, walk up to Little Italy (Lombardi’s Stone Oven Pizza at 32 Spring Street) and then spend the evening at Times Square finishing with a late night walk through Grand Central Station. Staying in Astoria, Queens can be way more cost effective than staying in Manhattan. It’s safe and still very easy to get downtown on one of the many subway lines. 2. Milan – Milan was probably the most challenging in terms of language and activities. It was uncommon to hear people speaking English and there wasn’t a whole lot to do in terms of sightseeing. In fairness, we probably didn’t make enough of an effort to learn any Italian before leaving whereas my French was sufficient to order food in Paris. The area around the Piazza Duomo is the logical place to start your visit. We enjoyed lying on the grass behind the castle Sforzesco which is about a 15-minute walk from the piazza. Be sure to dress appropriately if you want to enter the Duomo (covered knees for the ladies). While Milan gave us a taste of Italy, I suspect that Rome would be a much better choice for sightseeing. 3. Paris – Personally I had never felt a strong desire to visit Paris, but it turned out to be one of my favourite stops on our trip. There is so much to look at but it’s pretty tightly packed together and easily accessible from the metro. The Big Bus Tour is definitely worth taking if you want to get a lay of the land and learn about the historical significance of many of the city’s famous landmarks. My advice is to buy groceries or grab a crepe from the cart vendors and avoid overpaying to sit at the cafes. Versailles, though beautiful, was a nightmare in terms of the volume of tourists while the Louvre had a lot of the same splendour but was less crowded. The Louvre is open late on some nights and I think it served us well to go later in the afternoon on one of these days. Don’t forget the less busy Musee de l’Orangerie for Monet’s famous panoramic water lilies and be sure to spend a night sitting on the banks of the Seine at the Ile De La Citie with the locals. 4. London – London was naturally the easiest city to visit on our trip. While it’s not as compact as Paris for sightseeing, Westminster has a lot of the same historical charm but with English speaking guides and service staff. It’s also more common to find 24/7 shops for food, pharmacy and the like. The Tower of London and Westminster Abbey were both well worth touring. I would’ve eaten at Nando’s everyday if my wife had let me. Get an Oyster card to use the tube which will allow you to pay-as-you-go and add money as needed. Don’t forget that all the national galleries and museums are free! 5. Prague – Prague definitely has a unique vibe when compared with the other western European destinations that we visited. Similar to Paris, walking through the old town should be sufficient to experience the city without the need to create a concrete sightseeing plan beforehand. Our favourite place was the Agharta Jazz Club which is very close to the famous Astronomical Clock. While the city is very tourist-friendly, I did feel it was a little more predatory than Western Europe. Similar to your typical Caribbean resort destination, some local businesses will gouge you if you’re not vigilant. Be sure to get Czech Koruna before arriving in Prague and avoid using Euros or changing money at local exchange kiosks. The people are very nice though and most speak English. 6. Tokyo – What a wild place. People are very friendly and will do their best to help you with whatever limited English they speak. That’s the advantage over Europe I suppose – as a pasty-faced white person, no one will assume that you speak their language and nor will they be offended. You will hear Japanese people add the word “gozaimasu” to many of the sayings with which you might already be familiar. Apparently this is an old Japanese verb that means they are expressing something politely or “with humility”. It seems to be spoken slightly differently than it is written, so if you hear “ohayu gozaimaaaaas” or “arigatou gozaimaaaaas” you can interpret these sayings as “good morning” or “thank you” with a polite formulation. In terms of travel, I think the best strategy is to use the JR line with a Suica card to get around. If you get off at Shinjuku station, you can walk all the way down through the Meiji Shrine, Harajuku and on to Shibuya. Any of these stations will easily get you back to the main Tokyo Station without transferring and the Yamanote line is one big loop so you can never really go the “wrong” direction. My favourite places were probably Bic Camera and the East Imperial Gardens. Both are within walking distance of Tokyo station. DisneySea is also very cool if you want a break from downtown Tokyo and it’s only a short bus ride away. 7. Hawaii – There’s probably not much to say about Hawaii that wouldn’t be immediately obvious. It’s an exotic paradise with Walmart and Taco Bell. I’ve been to both Southern California and Florida but Hawaii is certainly far superior in terms of an American beach vacation. The water is much warmer and the surf is a lot more fun. Renting a car is really cheap and you can drive to the North Shore to do some cliff jumping or go out to Lanikai Beach for the picturesque white sand and turquoise water. Surfing is actually easier than I had expected but paddling around is exhausting. Do lots of pull-ups before arriving so that your arms don’t fall off if you plan to surf. Traveling around the world has been an amazing experience but doing it across four short weeks is exhausting. It’s hard not to run around and try to squeeze in as much as possible, but it will burn you out if you’re not careful. I think it’s wise to simply accept the fact that you’re not going to see absolutely everything and focus on one or two landmarks each day at most. The saying, “half as much clothing, twice as much money” is certainly true when it comes to travel. There are always unforeseen costs for simple things like transit and food that just start to add up no matter how disciplined you are and it’s worse to have to get more money in a foreign country than to bring your surplus cash back home with you. It’s impossible to go four weeks without having to do laundry at least once so it’s better to use most of your suitcase for socks and underwear with one or two pairs of shorts/pants. We aimed to have enough socks and underwear to make it to the midway point of our trip. You’ll also probably be bringing back more than you left with so it’s good to have some extra space in your suitcase. It’s so hard to live without easy access to the internet so make sure to download apps that you can use offline for maps, currency conversion, language and anything else that you think you might need. Wifi is always easy to find at McDonalds and Starbucks but it’s not as prevalent in public areas as I was led to believe. Usually you have to go through some arduous registration process to get connected which isn’t always free or secure. And finally, traveling the world has reminded me of one thing above all else and that is how lucky we all are to be Canadian. Though our country may lack some of the historical romance of Europe and perhaps the exotic landscapes of Asia or Polynesia, I wouldn’t trade our freshwater lakes, multicultural cities or the humble people that make up our great nation for any of it. Sure, my perspective might be different if I had been born in Italy or the Czech Republic or Japan but Canada truly is an incredible place to live. With over 7 billion people on planet earth, the 35 million of us Canadians (.5% of the global population) huddled together above the 49th parallel really have won the lottery. Happy travels.
Posted on: Mon, 06 Oct 2014 00:37:27 +0000
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